


The Bookmark

by CameraObscura



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CameraObscura/pseuds/CameraObscura
Summary: Phryne drops by Jack’s bungalow and while he’s off fixing drinks, she snoops. She is very pleased with her discovery.





	The Bookmark

After a long day Jack shed his suit and hopped in the shower. The water revived him. He wanted this to be one of those nights he was invited to Phryne’s parlor for a nightcap. The time spent with Phryne was becoming habit, and, like all habits, their power seemed most potent when unavailable. He was growing to need her in a way that concerned him. He decided to will himself not to think of that charming freight train as he turned off the tap.

Jack was half way dressed when he heard the screen door creak open. Knock, knock. He yelled from the back of the house, “I’ll be right there.” Sometimes the elderly widow across the street dropped off borrowed books, freshly baked pies, or the odd afghan as a reason to ask for help moving furniture or fixing a leaky faucet. He never minded. 

“Phryne, what are you doing here?” Slightly shaking his head before, “How did you know where I live?” His hand instinctively reached to tame an errant lock of hair. He hadn’t bothered to apply pomade after his bath. Wearing a waffled henley with the button open exposing his throat, sleeves pushed up to showing his forearms, he felt ruffled presenting his intimate self.

“I’m a detective. I detected.” Jack met Phryne’s bright eyes with a look that said he wasn’t so sure. “Oh alright, Jack! Hugh gave me the address. Under duress, I assure you.” She held up a basket in offering. “Mr. Butler packed a basket. Apparently Dot canned jam today and they sent some with your favorite biscuits!”

“Well, you’d better come in then.”

Phryne stepped over the threshold thanking him. He resisted the urge to scan the street for nosy neighbors. He was a bit thrown by her sudden appearance in his living room, quickly recovering his manners he helped her out of her coat. She had her back to him granting a moment to breathe in the lingering fragrance of her signature magnolia. He closed his eyes to ground himself to the present. Phryne looked around the room and with a glance over her shoulder exclaimed the house to be perfect! 

“I walked here. Truly, I had no idea this whole time you were so close to Wardlow. Now Jack, I normally wouldn’t drop-in without invitation, but I heard you were hurt. I immediately set out to assess the damages for myself.” 

“Your concern is appreciated, Miss Fisher, but as you can see I’m perfectly fine. A medic bandaged my hand at the scene, but no broken bones. Just a scratch!”

“But Hugh said you were shot at!” Phryne scanned her eyes over his body to check if it was indeed just a scratch.

“It missed.”

“Then your hand...?”

“Met pavement...when I was apprehending the suspect. The Commissioner sent me home on leave when he realized I’ve failed to use my holiday three years in a row. Here...sit here, please. I’ll fix us a drink. I’ll just be a moment.”

Jack disappeared toward the middle of the house. Phryne could hear cabinets creaking open and closing. She took the opportunity to reflect on the man’s home. It looked exactly as one would expect of Jack’s home, everything functional and well proportioned, nothing ornamental for ornament sake. Tobacco leather winged arm chair and a wheat wool throw. She noticed a conspicuous absence of personal photos and an impressive book collection. His bungalow had low built-in bookshelves flanking a fireplace filled with leather-bound novels, some medical reference books, and one well-loved volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets resting on a side table. Reaching for the tome, she allowed it to open randomly to a bookmarked spread. The bookmark fell to the floor and reaching down they appeared to be face down photos. She turned them over only to recognize herself staring back, her arrest photos. She had never seen the developed film. She felt her heart tighten. Just then Jack walked in expertly balancing a round tray on the pads of his long fingers of the good hand. He abruptly paused looking at the photos in her hand.

“Jack! You...you kept my photographs?”

Swallowing before speaking, he forced his eyes on hers, an infinitesimal jerk of his chin. “I did.”

“....Pressed in a book of sonnets.”

“As you see.”

They locked eyes with a quickening breath. The moment felt stretched out as she worked out the reason a married man, a noble man who always does the right thing, would have kept such a thing. 

“May I ask a personal question?”

His eyes shifted down to the tray, he gently lowered it to the coffee table before standing to his full height returning her gaze in an almost challenging way.

“Go ahead.”

“Are you... in love with me?” said Phryne with an upturned inflection.

He nodded yes before he realized to what he was admitting. Clearing his throat to say, “I am.”

“Oh, Jack!” breathlessly.

His heart caved a little. Was that pity in her voice? Goddamn it. Goddamn it, you bloody idiot. 

“But you’re married.”

“Not for long, Miss Fisher. Rosie filed for divorce. She wants to remarry a shipping tycoon.” The nonchalant raise of his shoulders was brave if inauthentic. 

“Jack. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. Rosie and I are parting on good terms and aside from the humiliating steps it took to convince the court that I was lousy cheating bastard to save her standing in society, it was really quite overdue.”

“So, she didn’t divorce you because of me then?”

“No. I...I have no designs on you, Miss Fisher. I know you don’t love me.” Once he started speaking, the words carried a momentum he could not stop. “You sashayed into my life lifting a weight I’d been carrying since the war. I’d been numb. I came home from the war thinking I didn’t deserve happiness or wouldn’t be able to recognize it again but now...I don’t know if it’s your zeal for pleasure and adventure...but I started to want those same things. I wanted to feel again. Feel anything other than shame. I needed to shed the guilt I carried around for returning from the war different from the man Rosie married. And you...you’re you, Miss Fisher. You pulled me into your orbit like the sun. I couldn’t help loving you if I tried. And I have. Believe me.”

“Jack, the war and Rosie...that’s all...understandable, but why, if you say you love me, do you have no designs to be with me? “

“To spare myself the pain of your rejection.” His voice had dropped to a rumbly whisper.

“Jack, how can you think I’d reject you when I have had to, so obviously, exercise restraint around you out of respect for your marriage?”

“I knew if I made myself available to you romantically it would be accepted and of short duration. That it would mean the end of our partnership. I’m not willing to make that trade. You mean too much. I’ll take unrequited over tossed over.”

“For a man professing his love you are certainly not painting me in a favorable light.”

“No, I didn’t mean...”

“I know what you mean. Do you honestly think I would treat you cruelly? What, may I ask, has given you the impression that I would treat anyone I loved cruelly?”

His eyes involuntarily squinted. Did she realize what she said? 

“Every man I’ve been with has full-disclosure of where they stand with me. They are consenting adults scratching an itch. But that is not to imply that I am void of all feeling. Or incapable of love. I am who I am, Jack, and I can never be anything else.”

“I would never ask you to be.”

Phryne’s voice swells. “I thought I could never have you, Jack. I had to file you under ‘unavailable.’ I’ve fantasized that maybe in a moment of weakness you would succumb to my charms, but knew if you did the guilt would eat you alive. I didn’t want to ruin us with my selfishness. So I decided I’d rather have you romantically unavailable than none of you. You are truly the only man that has made me want more. To want love. And I have wanted your love for quite some time.”

Tears pricked his eyes. Her breathing quickened from emotion.

“I’m not a liberal-minded man, Phryne. I don’t want to own you, but I couldn’t share you.” 

“If I had you I wouldn’t want anyone else. I can promise you only honesty, but never my hand.”

“Marriage is not something I could do again.”

“So, how would this work?” 

“Phryne.”

“A relationship?”

“Phryne.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

He crossed the living room and swept her in his arms. “With a kiss.” His good hand held the back of her head. A mewling sigh escaped and she tightened her arms around his back. He spun her around and walked backwards into the wall. His kisses deepened. Phryne wrapped a leg around his waist. In surprise, he pulled away from the kiss catching and pulling her bottom lip before sliding a hand to her ass. 

“Wait. Phryne. Before this goes further, I should tell you I’m woefully unprepared. I don’t have any French letters.”

“Before you stop I should tell you I AM prepared. I keep my internal device in my clutch. May I use your lavatory.”

“I do like a woman with a plan! First door on your left.”

When he saw her next she was wearing lingerie the color of peacock feathers and a come hither look. It was unlike anything Rosie had ever worn. Hell, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Criss-crossing straps and sheer panels. His confidence sprang forth from some long abandoned reserve. Jack crossed to her as she approached the living room from the hallway. Taking both her hands in his he drank in the site. “Have you worn things like this under your clothes this whole time?”

“Always,” she said.

“My God, woman! I need to reconsider my fantasies of you.” Phryne pealed with giggles as he guided her to the bedroom. 

“Jack, have you had that body under your clothes this whole time? My God, man! The things I plan to do with you. It’s a long list. We’d better start.”


End file.
